医学
いがく · igaku · JLPT N4 · noun
medical science
🩺📚 医学 = medicine (医) + study (学): the study of medicine
医 (i) means medicine or healing, as in 医者 (isha, doctor). 学 (gaku) means study or learning, as in 大学 (daigaku, university) and 科学 (kagaku, science). Many academic fields end in 学, so i + gaku is literally medicine-study.
学 — hands 𦥑 + roof 冖 + child 子
Originally 學, depicting two hands manipulating something (often interpreted as counting rods or the 爻 trigram symbols) under a roof, with a child 子 below — a child learning under instruction. The simplified form 学 replaces the top with a stylized 龸. Core meaning has always been 'to study, learn'.